The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not been shy about pushing for a new clean water rule that extended its already considerable authority over land everywhere in the nation.

In doing so, EPA ignored previous Congressional decisions and Supreme Court decisions. They claimed a joint mission with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Now, documents have surfaced that the Corps was not all that keen on the EPA trampling over the facts.

EPA ignored public comments and engaged in a massive public relations program to sway those comments their way. This is more than playing fast and loose with the facts. This is astonishing arrogance that is confident nothing is standing in the way.

“A farmer should never have to destroy a crop due to the lack of an adequate labor force.”

Attribute that statement to American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman. It is a thought echoed throughout Texas and the nation as food spoils in the field because Congress is unwilling to address labor shortages in agriculture.

The words weren’t spoken, but the intent was obvious in the speech delivered by American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman at the opening session of the AFBF annual meeting in San Antonio.

Stallman said Congress is falling down in addressing our nation’s and agriculture’s needs including failure to pass a much-delayed and much-needed farm bill and agricultural labor reform.

“I don’t know what you do when an employee doesn’t get the job done…but I can make a pretty good guess,” Stallman said.

In this age of free-flowing information, when most anything can be found in cyberspace, it’s a little disconcerting that government knows the most intimate details of your family, finances and business. It’s downright alarming when they release that information to those who might do you harm.

Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released personal information about thousands of livestock and poultry farmers and ranchers in 20 states in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from three environmental organizations. The massive data release included home phone numbers, home emails, employee contact information, home addresses, GPS coordinates and, in some cases, personal notes about the families, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).

It’s a curious coalition that always creeps out of the deep woods to oppose the farm bill, which, in one form or another has ensured U.S. supplies of food and fiber since the 1930s.

It’s sort of like an episode of The Walking Dead. One group of zombies swoops in from the deep woods of the left, believing that attacking modern agriculture in their typical Luddite fashion will produce the environmental utopia of which they dream.